Sign of success

Over the last couple of months I’ve been going through a complete content marketing strategy, from research to implementation, and now, promotion and measurement. Do check out the last two issues of EGR Marketing for a breakdown on the first two steps of a content marketing strategy. In this third and final part of the series I will be covering how to promote your content and measure its impact.

One of the biggest problems with this stage of the cycle is that it often gets ignored. There’€™s a common misconception, it seems, that content marketing only involves creating content. Somehow, people are expected to find that content. I’€™ve already discussed how unlikely that is in the first article in this series due to the vast amount of online content created hourly.

From my experience, with no promotion at all your content marketing efforts are already set to fail. It’s unlikely you’€™ll get many readers at all unless you already have a very strong and loyal user base. Even then, any new piece of content you release should aim to bring in more users.

Taking the first step
As with any promotion strategy, the first step is to put together a plan outlining what channels you will target. I split this up into own (social media, email), external (blogger outreach, forums, social groups), and paid channels (PPC, social, display). Think about how you interact with each channel and how users will see your content there.

Much of your social efforts for promoting your own content can be automated using tools like Buffer or IFTTT. Schedule sharing of your content multiple times at different times of the day/week to target different audiences that follow your social feeds. If you’€™ve already optimised your posts for social during the execution phase, then this step is pretty much done. What I mean by optimised is ensuring you’€™ve enabled Twitter cards and Facebook open graph for your content so that social shares stand out more on people’€™s feeds. This makes automated social sharing easier as well as ensuring that when others share your content it is presented in the best way possible.

Email marketing can also be used effectively to share your content and increase readership and loyalty. This shouldn’€™t be used for every piece of content you create otherwise you risk frustrating your subscribers with too many emails or news that they’€™ve already seen too often in your other channels. However, used strategically this can be beneficial for your campaign.

Consider sharing content with your email subscribers before you promote it elsewhere to give them a sense of exclusivity. This is also most effective when your content has a higher chance of converting. A whitepaper presenting new research, insight, or opinion relevant to your subscribers for example stands a higher chance of being read and engaged with via email than if you were to share a blog about internal company news.

Subject specific forums and Reddit are a great way of targeting a new audience. This medium shouldn’€™t be used as a link building strategy but as a way to showcase your knowledge, start conversations, and reach new potential users.

Talk of the town
Instead of just sharing your content on there make sure you start a discussion. Ask questions, discuss what you’€™re sharing and why it’€™s relevant to them, if appropriate talk about the research, or methodology, or technology used to create what you’re sharing. It’€™s important to make sure you’€™re present after you’€™ve shared so you can respond to any comments, questions, or feedback. Not only does this promote the content you created to a new audience who might not have heard of you before and could in time convert to customers, but it also positions your brand in a positive manner.

Social groups would fall in this same category. There will be a number of LinkedIn and Facebook groups (potentially even Google+ if that’€™s still relevant for your niche) that cover the same niche. You can use these to promote your content as well. Self-promotion still works in this form as long as you come across as genuine. Take the same steps you did when promoting in forums: ask for feedback and opinions, start discussions. It’€™s even fine to ask others in the group to share it with their connections if they think it would be useful for them. You’€™ll be surprised how well this works assuming you’€™ve already put in the effort of participating in these communities.

In the first article in this series I talked about finding competitors that are creating similar content to see who’€™s sharing it and also identifying any influencers in that niche. This is the point where you start sharing your content with them.

Start reaching out to bloggers that have shared similar content in the past as well as influencers. You’€™ll have a much higher success rate here if you’€™ve already started interacting with these guys during the research phase of your content strategy. As outlined in the first article, contact them early on to start forming a relationship with them and get them involved with your content strategy. Now, when you’re ready to promote you’€™re not cold calling them so they’€™ll be much more receptive to sharing your own content.

In a similar way you would reach out to influencers on social directly sharing your content with them, asking them what they think and if they’€™d be happy to share it with their followers.

Get what you pay for
Paid media is something that I often see overlooked when promoting content. There is this misconception that PPC is most effective when targeting highly competitive transactional phrases. However, I like using paid media to promote content because it’€™s less competitive, usually cheaper, and you can get your content in front of an audience that you might not have been able to reach before.

These days, paid ads are almost undistinguishable from organic listing on search and with more and more elements being added to standard web search (maps, images, answer boxes etc.) paid positions hold the most visible spot. Because you’€™ll be targeting long tail informational phrases that often get overlooked by other brands chances are that you’€™re much more likely to be the only one showing up for paid results for your content plus it’€™ll be relatively affordable.

For the same reasons as PPC I like using paid social to promote content. Facebook ads have one distinct advantage to PPC (and all other mediums): you can target specific demographics. This is where you use your user research from the start of your project to select key Facebook demographics that will be shown your ads. Filter by location, interests, and behaviours to make sure that the most relevant audience sees your content. Whether that’€™s your direct customers or influencers that are likely to share, you’€™ve got a lot more control here than on any other medium.

Keeping track
Whatever channel you use to promote make sure that you track everything. This will help you measure which channels work best for what kind of content, which ones bring in converting traffic, and ultimately measure ROI based on channel instead of just overall campaign.

If this is your first time running a thorough content marketing campaign, then even underperforming channels are still a positive result. Now you know that that channel doesn’€™t work so well for you so next time you promote you can spend less budget or none at all on poorly performing channels and invest elsewhere.

The easiest way to track this is using Google’€™s URL builder. This is an easy tool that lets you create unique URLs with parameters that you can use when sharing content. You would specify a campaign source, medium, and name to get a unique URL that you can use for specific mediums. You can then see this information directly on Google Analytics.

If you’€™ve set up goals correctly as outlined in the first article and assigned values to your goals and are tracking each promotion accurately, you can now measure success. Google Analytics will show you a total value based on the number of conversions you’€™ve had so we’€™ll use this figure as the return. Make sure to calculate this per campaign and medium. Calculate the investment total for creating the content as well as investment per medium (how much you spend on promotion for different channels). A basic formula for calculating ROI would then be: ((RETURNINVESTMENT)/INVESTMENT)*100

At the end of a campaign you should also be measuring what works to help you decide on future strategies and investments. Some of the questions you should be asking yourself are: what type of content works best (length, topic, title), what promotion source (medium, time, budget), what CTAs (messaging, and placement).

Now the next time you create content you’€™ll be better equipped to create something that appeals to your audience, and ultimately, brings in more revenue.